Maimonides Breast Cancer Docs Make Waves in Miami

On March 6-9, 2014, the nationally renowned Miami Breast Conference — the oldest and largest clinical breast cancer symposium in the United States — held its 31st annual meeting in Miami, FL.

This year’s meeting was organized and chaired by Patrick Borgen, MD, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Maimonides Medical Center and Director of the Brooklyn Breast Cancer Program. Prior to arriving at Maimonides in September 2006, Dr. Borgen served as Chief Breast Surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He also founded and directed the William F. Keck Breast Cancer Research Laboratory at the Rockefeller Research Laboratories.

More than 1,200 surgeons, oncologists, pathologists, and radiologists attended the conference, which highlighted two themes: personalizing our approach to breast cancer via a better understanding of the disease and targeted therapies; secondly, addressing quality of life — for both the patient and the physician.

An internationally acclaimed faculty of 26 experts offered four days of lectures, discussion, case presentations and debate. A case-based discussion format was used throughout the meeting with audience participation before and after every talk.

Other Maimonides faculty featured at the conference included Donna-Marie Manasseh, MD, Chief of Breast Surgery at the Maimonides Cancer Center, who lectured on nipple-sparing mastectomy approaches and novel approaches to surgical treatment of cancer in the augmented breast. Christina Giuliano, MD, Chief of Breast Imaging, also lectured on breast MRI, tomosynthesis mammography and current approaches to breast ultrasound.

Conference attendees noted enthusiastically that the Maimonides Breast Program is clearly at the very forefront of breast cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment in the United States, rivaling the care offered by any New York City medical center.